Mastitis is a significant animal health problem affecting global dairy production. Dosing a heard of dairy cows to treat or protect against mastitis can be a very labour intensive exercise. For example, the organisation Dairy NZ suggests a treatment procedure estimated to take approximately 3 minutes per cow. It is important that scrupulous hygiene is observed to ensure the treatment is successful. But with an average time of 3 minutes, it means that to give blanket dry cow treatment to all cows in the average New Zealand herd of say 400 cows, over 20 hours of time would be expended. This indicates just how time consuming the process can be. The problem can be accentuated in cases where a new dosing syringe has to be obtained and manipulated for each cow.
A further issue with treating cows for mastitis is that the equipment used should be scrupulously clean. It should not itself present a source of bacterial contamination. However with many know dosing syringes it is necessary to remove a cover cap by hand each time a cow is dosed. This presents an opportunity for bacterial infection to pass to the syringe, and therefore to the cows.
Another issue is that often farmers wish to administer an antibiotic paste into the teat canal followed by a teat sealant during the same treatment occasion. With some known techniques this can require farmers to administer 8 syringes per cow, or 2400 syringes in an average sized New Zealand herd.
It is an object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention to provide a dosing apparatus which goes at least some way towards overcoming one or more of the above problems. While this object applies to a preferred embodiment, it should not be seen as a limitation on the scope of the invention as claimed. The object of the invention per se is simply to provide the public with a useful choice.
The term “comprising” or derivatives thereof (eg “comprises”), if and when used herein, should be interpreted non-exclusively—eg if used in relation to a specific combination of features it should not be taken to exclude the possibility of there also being additional unspecified features.